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Wagging the Dog in Gaza: Netanyahu’s Skirmish of Fear (Sternfeld)
Lior Sternfeld writes in a guest column for Informed Comment
Israel has embarked, with its Gaza attack, on the all-too-well-known elections routine. Before the 2009 elections, the defense minister, Ehud Barak, who then led the Labor party, saw his party performing poorly in the national polls. Ehud Olmert, who was the prime minister, needed some public support as well, and the two launched operation “Cast Lead.” It was during Hannukah, and the chosen name provoked famous holiday children song, and an awful name of a vastly used material (lead).
With the 2013 elections just months away, Barak sees polls for his now rapidly vanishing party sending him to early retirement, and just like in Hanukkah 2008, Israel decided to break a ceasefire and assassin the Hamas senior military persona, Ahmad Jaferi. Hamas, as expected, responded with firing rockets on Israel’s southern regions, and to the great satisfaction of both Hamas and Israel, a full-scale war is being evolved.
Netanyahu knows his constituency very well. He knows that the way to ensure his victory in the upcoming elections will be by diverting the public discourse from demands of social justice to existential threats imposed on Israel by the bogeyman- Hamas, And the cost of imperiling a third of Israel’s population seems reasonable enough for him. When virtually no opposition seen in miles, Netanyahu cemented his dreadful leadership for the next four years. It is not that Netanyahu faced a serious challenge in the Israeli political arena.
....
http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/wagging-the-dog-in-gaza-netanyahus-skirmish-of-fear-sternfeld.html
Israel has embarked, with its Gaza attack, on the all-too-well-known elections routine. Before the 2009 elections, the defense minister, Ehud Barak, who then led the Labor party, saw his party performing poorly in the national polls. Ehud Olmert, who was the prime minister, needed some public support as well, and the two launched operation “Cast Lead.” It was during Hannukah, and the chosen name provoked famous holiday children song, and an awful name of a vastly used material (lead).
With the 2013 elections just months away, Barak sees polls for his now rapidly vanishing party sending him to early retirement, and just like in Hanukkah 2008, Israel decided to break a ceasefire and assassin the Hamas senior military persona, Ahmad Jaferi. Hamas, as expected, responded with firing rockets on Israel’s southern regions, and to the great satisfaction of both Hamas and Israel, a full-scale war is being evolved.
Netanyahu knows his constituency very well. He knows that the way to ensure his victory in the upcoming elections will be by diverting the public discourse from demands of social justice to existential threats imposed on Israel by the bogeyman- Hamas, And the cost of imperiling a third of Israel’s population seems reasonable enough for him. When virtually no opposition seen in miles, Netanyahu cemented his dreadful leadership for the next four years. It is not that Netanyahu faced a serious challenge in the Israeli political arena.
....
http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/wagging-the-dog-in-gaza-netanyahus-skirmish-of-fear-sternfeld.html
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Comments I made a few minutes ago elsewhere to someone who accused me of tin foil hat thinking on the US scandal of late. I think it ties into this scenario about which this thread is directed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=306753
Some heady stuff but it is what it is....
Bibi would NEVER do something like that!
